Ignaz Kirchner

Ignaz Kirchner (born Hanns-Peter Kirchner-Wierichs; 13 July 1946 – 26 September 2018) was a German actor who made a career on German-speaking stages, especially at Vienna's Burgtheater where he played for 30 years. A character actor, he worked with leading stage directors. He often played opposite Gert Voss, both in classical drama such as Shakespeare's Antonio, with Voss as Shylock, and as Jago, with Voss as Othello, and especially in black comedies, such as Goldberg in Tabori's Die Goldberg-Variationen (with Voss as Mr. Jay), and in Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys, Beckett's Endspiel and Genet's Die Zofen. Kirchner and Voss were named Schauspielerpaar des Jahres twice, in 1992 and 1998.

Career

Born in Wuppertal, Kirchner was raised from age ten in a Jesuit boarding school in Vorarlberg, Austria. He later chose the name of Ignatius of Loyola as his stage name. He first was an apprentice in a book shop, and then trained in acting at the Schauspielschule Bochum. He made his stage debut in 1970, when he was still at university, in Roger Vitrac's Der Coup von Trafalgar staged by Alfred Kirchner. The actor played in 1973 and 1974 at the Freie Volksbühne Berlin, participating in two productions by Wilfried Minks. In 1974 he moved on to Stuttgart, on an invitation by Claus Peymann, where he remained until 1978. He then worked for Theater Bremen, where he had his greatest success in the title role of Shakespeare's Hamlet, directed in 1980 by Jürgen Gosch.